Free Soap is CCMC’s masterpiece, especially the incredible real-time tone poem ‘a.k.a. February 13th’ that takes up the first side of the LP. The piece begins with sparse strokes of marimba, trumpet, synthesizer, bowed bass and piano moving into the brilliant middle section which uses long silences in a way that anticipates Onkyo by over 30 years and then builds into an all out free-scorcher which sounds like it could have been off a Center of the World LP if not for the electronics and steel drum which keep it lifted, weird & diversely Canadian.

Line-up:

Casey Sokol – piano, steel drum, Yamaha organ
Michael Snow – Piano, trumpet, marimba, siren electric piano, aluminum foil, percussion
Nobuo Kubota – siren, strange horn, whistle, cymbals, drums, crackle box, alto sax, duck, glockenspiel
Al Mattes – Buchla synthesizer, bass, shell casings, horns, marimba, bells, steel drum
Peter Anson – Buchla synthesizer

This is the original Music Gallery Edition release from 1979.

MGE 31

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Free Soap LP $22.00